Paula Wolff, Adolf Hitler’s forgotten sister, and the diary that challenged her story

For years, Paula Hitler tried to disappear behind another name. On her brother’s orders, she became Paula Wolff, a change intended to keep people from knowing that she was Adolf Hitler’s sister. In 1945, the Allies nevertheless found her and questioned her about her childhood, her years of anonymity under the Nazi regime and her relationship with Adolf.

The interrogation was reviewed and signed in July 1945 by Francis E. Martini, a special agent with the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps. Martini wrote that Adolf’s rapid rise had worried Paula. “Honestly, I must confess that I would have preferred him to have pursued his original ambition and become an architect. It would have spared the world many worries,” the report says.

Paula told the Allies that she had no relationship with National Socialism. But the later discovery of her private diary put that version under pressure. The article presents her testimony against the background of a troubled family life that historians later viewed as important to understanding both Paula and her brother.

Their father, Alois Hitler, is described as authoritarian, despotic and unpredictable at home. Their mother, Klara, was affectionate, according to her doctor, Edward Bloch. Paula was the only one of Adolf Hitler’s full siblings to reach adulthood. The family had eight children across Alois’s three marriages, but several died in childhood or shortly after birth.

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Honestly, I must confess that I would have preferred him to have pursued his original ambition and become an architect. It would have spared the world many worries.